FILE: Federal agents confront the protesters in the driveway of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Portland, Ore., on Sept. 28, 2025.
Kristyna Wentz-Graff / OPB
Federal authorities pushing for National Guard deployment in Portland gave Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek a tight timeline Saturday: Either call up 200 guard members on her own authority in the next half day, or they would.
“If [Oregon National Guard] forces are not mobilized in the next 12 hours, the Secretary of War may direct the mobilization of as many members of the ORNG has he may deem necessary,” Timothy Rieger, a major general in the National Guard Bureau, wrote in a memo signed shortly before 11:30 a.m. Pacific Time.
“To be clear,” Rieger wrote, “we believe time is of the essence and failure to mobilize sufficient forces quickly to address the situation may risk lives and property damage.” The National Guard Bureau is a federal agency within the Pentagon that coordinates federal response to the guard across states and territories.
The memo appears to have set off a frantic series of events.
Related: What we know so far about the National Guard deployment in Portland
Kotek first got on the phone with U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who records show had requested a troop presence in Portland last Friday. Then Kotek spoke with President Donald Trump.
According to both the governor and the president, she insisted troops were not necessary to respond to a small but persistent group of protesters who’d gathered outside a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in South Portland for months.
Shortly after 7 p.m. on Saturday, the Oregon National Guard formally responded to the 12-hour deadline.
“Governor Kotek and President Trump spoke today around 12:20 p.m., Pacific Time,” Brig. Gen. Alan Gronewold, the director of the Oregon Military Department, wrote in an email to Rieger. “While I was not party to the conversation, the Governor expressed to the President that mobilization of the National Guard is not necessary at this time and does not agree to Title 32 mobilization.”
Related: From passing mention to authorized deployment: A timeline of the president’s pressure on Portland
By the next morning, the Trump administration followed through on its threat, nationalizing 200 members of the Oregon National Guard for 60 days. Kotek has said Trump broke a promise to speak with her before taking that action — and texted as much to one of the president’s aides.
The documents released Wednesday in response to an OPB public records request offer more clarity on what happened in the run-up to a deployment that has Portlanders on edge. They also provide insight into the kinds of tasks federal troops have been asked to perform.
In a separate memo sent last Friday, DHS wrote that a troop deployment was warranted in Portland because of “coordinated assault by violent groups intent on obstructing lawful enforcement actions” in the city.
Protesters, the memo suggested, were “actively aligned with designated domestic terrorist organizations.” That appears to refer to Trump’s order last week designating people who identify as anti-fascist, or Antifa, as members of a terrorist group.
The DHS memo said troops would be used for “federal facility protection, access control, and crowd control measures.” It requested a deployment for as long as unrest in Portland continues.
For now, the deployment has yet to take shape. The Oregon National Guard said Tuesday that the 200 members called up for the mission will spend days being processed and trained before they arrive in Portland. It’s possible they will never show up, if a court challenge to Trump’s order is successful.
Related: Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek and President Donald Trump trade testy texts over troop deployment
None of that has stopped the president from drawing attention to the matter on his Truth Social platform. On Wednesday morning, Trump posted that “conditions continue to deteriorate into lawless mayhem” in Portland, and that national guard troops were “in place.”
He also took another dig at Kotek, whom he has repeatedly accused of downplaying the seriousness of the small protests in Portland.
“The Governor of Oregon must be living in a ‘Dream World,’” Trump wrote on the social media platform. “Portland is a NEVER-ENDING DISASTER. Many people have been badly hurt, and even killed. It is run like a Third World Country.“
Portland police have said repeatedly that they don’t need assistance in handling demonstrations outside the ICE facility. The protests have typically featured a few dozen participants at most, though numbers have grown larger since Trump announced the troop deployment.
The potential cost of a deployment has been something of a moving target. The Oregon Military Department estimated Tuesday the mission would cost $3.8 million in soldier salaries alone.
Gov. Tina Kotek’s office offered another figure Wednesday: $10 million, once lodging, meals, supplies are factored in. The OMD did not immediately offer a detailed breakdown of that estimate.
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